


Team Bonding, Old-School

by SnufflestheBear



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Team Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2016-10-26
Packaged: 2018-08-27 04:23:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8387032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnufflestheBear/pseuds/SnufflestheBear
Summary: The past is a dangerous place, but injuries make for good bonding opportunities.





	

When a stray shot clips Rufus, Lucy holds it together until they get him to a hotel room, and then everything goes grey for a second. She hadn’t been kidding about fainting around blood. Rufus is sprawled out on the bed, panting harshly and telling Wyatt to forget about if he thinks he’s bringing a knife anywhere near the bullet wound. It’s worse than when Wyatt got shot, there’s a lot of blood and she has no idea what to do, and thinking about it makes the corners of her vision darken again, so she focuses on Rufus’ face and swallows hard and says “You’re going to be fine.” Rufus rolls his eyes at her and she presses her lips together and looks at Wyatt, who tells her to get some hot water and clean towels. 

Wyatt is calm and focused as he produces the first aid kid they’ve started keeping on the lifeboat. He says things like “This is going to hurt” and “I don’t really know what I’m doing, so you’re definitely going to have a scar” and “If we don’t stop the bleeding you’re in trouble” (and, once or twice, “stop being such a baby”). Lucy wants to ask him why he has to be so bluntly honest, why he can’t lie a little, be a little more comforting, but when the wound is finally stitched up and bandaged and the bleeding is stopped, she figures it out. It’s because by the time Wyatt tosses a bloodied towel to one side and says “You’re going to be fine,” Rufus believes him.

*

Wyatt getting stabbed is not actually that big a deal. The wound itself isn’t bad. But when they reach the field where Rufus parked the lifeboat, it’s gone. It takes three frantic days of searching before they hear a rumour about a farmer who found a UFO in his field and is keeping it in his barn. By this point, without any real medical attention, Wyatt is hot to the touch and shivering uncontrollably.

They wait until dark to sneak into the barn and, sure enough, there the lifeboat is. Lucy has absolutely no idea how the farmer got it in there, but then, the how doesn’t really matter. All that matters is they can finally go home. 

Unfortunately, the farmer seems to have anticipated someone coming to claim his prize. He’s staking out the ship, apparently, and comes out of nowhere wielding a shotgun as soon as Rufus opens the door. At death’s door or not, Wyatt manages to disarm the guy, and Rufus ties him up outside the barn before coming back to help Wyatt up into the lifeboat. 

For a change, she’s the one fastening Wyatt’s seatbelt. She manages not to fumble too much, and once it’s ready she pats him awkwardly on the shoulder.

“Ready?” asks Rufus from the front.

“Ready,” she says.

“Let’s go get our boy just, all of the antibiotics,” says Rufus, and starts flipping switches. One day she’ll have to try paying attention to what he’s doing, but the moment the lifeboat starts firing up the nausea kicks in, so she hasn’t managed it yet.

She looks back at Wyatt to find him watching her with glazed eyes, smiling that half smile that she will never admit makes her stomach flutter a little.

“What?” she asks.

He lifts one shoulder a little. “You’re cool. Both of you. You did good.”

“Oh God,” says Rufus. “He’s dying.”

She smiles. “Get us home before he starts telling us he loves us.”

“Totally love you guys,” Wyatt drawls. 

His eyes slide closed, so he doesn’t see her startled smile as Rufus hits the final button, sending the lifeboat lurching into motion. 

*

Her ankle hurts like a bitch, but not as much as her pride. Her cheeks flame red while Wyatt slides her boot off, makes her move her foot, and makes “hmm” noises. They get into gun fights pretty much every time they travel, and here she is brought down by a cracked paving stone – after all the action is over and done with.

Wyatt gives her his slow smile, and if she hadn’t already been blushing, she probably would be now. “I don’t think it’s broken,” he says.

“You don’t think?” says Rufus, eyebrows raised.

“I’m a soldier, not a doctor. But I think it’s just a bad sprain.”

Rufus mutters something under his breath about letting a soldier-not-a-doctor make medical calls, but wisely subsides when Lucy gives him her best professorial glare.  
“Thanks,” she says, “But I don’t think I can walk on it.”

They take turns carrying her to a nearby stable, where, after a brief argument – “I’m not doing it! Do you KNOW what they do to black men caught stealing in this century?!” – Wyatt steals a horse. None of them know how to put on a saddle, so she rides it bareback, clinging to its mane with her eyes squeezed shut.

After they reach the lifeboat and help her hobble on board, Rufus sets the horse free. He goes for the dramatic smack on the flank that they’re all familiar with from movies back home, but instead of galloping off, it just sort of stares at him in confusion. 

“Get!” he says. “Hi… uh… hee-yah!” He flaps his arms at it, waves, jumps up and down, gives it another slap, to no effect.

Eventually, it grows bored with his antics and wanders away. Lucy, watching from her seat on the ship, guiltily hopes that it will find its way back home. Wyatt’s smirking openly as he fastens her seatbelt, then hops out so that Rufus can get in. Rufus pretends to take offense, ranting about respecting the pilot as he starts hitting the buttons that will take them home.

Lucy wonders when she got so used to traveling through time, and how she grew comfortable enough to laugh while doing it.


End file.
